1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic tape high-speed braking apparatus and, more particularly, to a magnetic tape high-speed braking apparatus which can brake a magnetic tape running at a high speed in a magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus such as a video tape recorder.
2. Description of the Related Art
For magnetic recording/reproducing apparatuses employing a magnetic tape, such as video tape recorders (hereinafter referred to as VTR or VTRs), a so-called full loading system has been developed which winds a magnetic tape, wound around a reel, around a cylinder to initiate the entire operation in high-speed mode as in recording/reproducing mode. In a VTR of this full loading system, a brake mechanism for detecting a tape end to initiate braking in high-speed mode, such as fast-forward (hereinafter referred to as FF) or rewinding (hereinafter referred to as REW) mode, is generally constituted as follows.
A predetermined cam pattern for setting the operation mode, such as the aforementioned FF or REW, recording, playback or stop, is formed as a cam groove in a cam gear. A cam lever is engaged at its one end in the cam groove so as to be movable along the grooves. When an tape end detector detects the tape end, the cam lever is moved by rotating the cam gear to a predetermined position for the stop mode. Setting the cam lever in stop mode applies braking on the rotation of a cylinder or on the running of the magnetic tape. Accordingly, this braking mechanism requires a predetermined braking time for rotating the cam gear until braking is applied to a reel stand on which the afore-mentioned reel is mounted, after detection of the tape end. As the magnetic tape gets closer to the tape end, the running speed of the tape is slowed down.
However, decelerating the magnetic tape near the tape end inevitably increases the tape winding time and makes this braking mechanism inapplicable to a high-speed VISS (VHS Index Search System) or the like.
With the capstan drive in use, the inertia drive by a capstan motor should be instantaneously stopped in order to stop the magnetic tape with a high responsibility after detection of the tape end.